Training Summary: 1/18 - 1/24

Mon - 0
Tue - 3 miles
Wed - 3.5 miles
Thu - 4 miles
Fri - 4.5 miles
Sat - 4.5 miles
Sun - 5.5 miles
Total: 25 miles

Well, I’m not ready to say I’m out of the woods yet, and even if I am in terms of the injury I’ve got a ridiculously long way to go to get back in shape, but this past week was at least a step in the right direction and I feel pretty good about it. The only day I was completely pain free was the first run on Tuesday, but from there on it didn’t get any worse and I think actually got a little better each day, so I’ll take it. After 11 weeks of nothing, any progress at all is really nice!

There’s obviously no need to go into any detail regarding the specifics of any of my runs. Let’s just say the pace for all of them would be classified as jogging. I did pick up the pace a little for the last half mile of my Sunday run, and for just a bit felt like a real runner again. Hopefully it’s a sign of things to come.

On tap for this week: more jogging. As long as things continue to feel like they did this past week, I’ll press forward. I’m hoping by next week, which just so happens to be the beginning of February, I’ll be pain free and able to put in 45-50 min without any problems. That’s the short term goal for the time being.

I’m really excited to get back to training, but I’m gonna be smart about it this time, which means not forcing anything. I talked to Steve Taylor for a while at the VA Tech meet this past weekend and told him I have no idea why I got away from the things that worked for me back years ago when I was basically following his training scheme. I guess the combination of thinking about the marathon and seeing that I could run really well by just killing mileage did me in. However, as we discussed, even with lots of downtime for injuries I’ve built a huge aerobic base over the years, and the downtime from those injuries may have extended my career as well. Time to put all that, along with the knowledge/experience I've gained over the years, to good use! But first……..jogging – ha, ha. Gotta crawl before you can walk, and crawling is certainly my limit for the time being. Hope everyone has a good week!